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The other day, feeling utterly uninspired in every area of my life and wondering if I even had anything to BLOG about, I pondered if a regular blog series on My Best Dreams of the Week or So would be feasible, because it would give me something marginally entertaining to blog about when I don't have anything I particularly WANT to blog about. I'm fairly regular about writing my dreams down (at least the good ones) in the morning, so it wouldn't even require all that much work.
I don't THINK I'm going to do that. Unless there's a huge demand for it now that I mentioned it. I HAVE written about dreams here many times before, and it's even worse if you're on Twitter because if I'm on the computer during breakfast and something amusing about my dreams can be summed up in a sentence or two and/or stars someone I FOLLOW on Twitter, chances are you'll hear about it. But have I REALLY talked about my dreams, in a general sense? Devoting an entire post to the topic?
Dreams are closely linked to my identity as a writer. I started writing stories based on particularly excellent story-like dreams-- for the first six or seven years of my writing career (using "career" in the sense of "how long I'd been writing," because I was in elementary school and hardly getting paid for it), all my stories were based, at least in their first drafts (and I really didn't start revising at all until about 5th grade), on dreams. Lately they're the only thing that keeps me from entirely losing my self-concept as a writer. I honestly still can't make myself believe, in the cold light of day, that I have any stories worth telling... and then I fall asleep and the blocks fall away.
I dream in narrative. Not saying they're GOOD narratives or at all things that would make a decent book, but I do dream stories. Dreaming in color? Pah, child's play. I dream in five or six senses and in fully-formed characters. I dream adventures! I dream EPICS! I dream insane twisted hilarious things, and actually-pretty-clever inventive things, things that are so unique that, yeah, maybe I DO have a one-of-a-kind special voice... in this part of my brain that my conscious mind refuses to let out during the day.
Sometimes I'm a character in the story, seeing and being through the eyes of a made-up person-- someone who could be of a different time, a different age or race or gender or background; it feels like reading a book, being in the mind of the main character and feeling with them even though they aren't you.
Other times I AM me, though not always me as I actually am right now. Often I'm younger-- a child, a teenager, a young adult unmarried and childless (though there are confusing moments when I'm sitting in my 6th-grade classroom saying, "But when I was in COLLEGE..."). I'm also more active, more assertive-- I have a lot of Rallying-the-Troops moments, which also somehow frequently involve me leading everyone in song. Occasionally I'm outright aggressive and violent, taking out the anger I've repressed in real life on obnoxious dream figures (did I tell you about the time I dreamt I was a serial killer who kept reflexively smiting people? I'm still not even sure what I was so angry about at that time).
I'm very prone to lucid dreaming, which sounds all new-agey and mysterious but for me it usually just happens, and most of the time I just decide to ride the dream out to see where it goes, anyway, all the while informing everyone I meet that I'm actually just dreaming them. Often I'll have fun with it-- or use it for quick problem-solving shortcuts-- doing things I KNOW couldn't happen if it wasn't a dream... which most of the time involves me either flying or having affairs with certain celebrity crushes. Many times I don't even have that much power (my flying attempts turn into a sort of low-gravity bouncing, or my celebrity crushes refuse to even show up), and I still get surprised by the dream moments that go on happening regardless of where I think the story's going-- like huge Sheriff McCheeseburger Dudes devouring Mr. Potato Heads behind you just when you think you're going back to redo your lost PRAXIS test. (What. Yes, I'm using real examples here).
But the most common thing I do, when I realize I've been dreaming? Grab a notebook and attempt to write it all down. Sometimes I merely forget that I'm still dreaming and that dream notebooks don't wake up. Other times I'm convinced that if I just get it all down, THIS time I'll have it in the morning. Very often I'm trying to write down the dreams while dreams just keep happening around me, and I'll be like, "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE TO FINISH WRITING THIS!" Or I'll keep having the dream over and over as I "rewrite" it, changing it slightly each time-- or, IT changing without me expecting it.
In real life my doubts have gotten to the point where I can't even write for fun anymore-- except for journaling and letters and occasional blog posts, but only rare bits and pieces of fiction. It makes me question my whole identity, makes me think that I'm NOT a writer after all, that that's just something I did as a child when I had trouble expressing myself and now I should just get an actual life instead. But in my dreams I'm still a writer, taking notes, crafting characters, thinking in narrative.
Am I giving up on my dreams? My dreams are not giving up on me.
I don't THINK I'm going to do that. Unless there's a huge demand for it now that I mentioned it. I HAVE written about dreams here many times before, and it's even worse if you're on Twitter because if I'm on the computer during breakfast and something amusing about my dreams can be summed up in a sentence or two and/or stars someone I FOLLOW on Twitter, chances are you'll hear about it. But have I REALLY talked about my dreams, in a general sense? Devoting an entire post to the topic?
Dreams are closely linked to my identity as a writer. I started writing stories based on particularly excellent story-like dreams-- for the first six or seven years of my writing career (using "career" in the sense of "how long I'd been writing," because I was in elementary school and hardly getting paid for it), all my stories were based, at least in their first drafts (and I really didn't start revising at all until about 5th grade), on dreams. Lately they're the only thing that keeps me from entirely losing my self-concept as a writer. I honestly still can't make myself believe, in the cold light of day, that I have any stories worth telling... and then I fall asleep and the blocks fall away.
I dream in narrative. Not saying they're GOOD narratives or at all things that would make a decent book, but I do dream stories. Dreaming in color? Pah, child's play. I dream in five or six senses and in fully-formed characters. I dream adventures! I dream EPICS! I dream insane twisted hilarious things, and actually-pretty-clever inventive things, things that are so unique that, yeah, maybe I DO have a one-of-a-kind special voice... in this part of my brain that my conscious mind refuses to let out during the day.
Sometimes I'm a character in the story, seeing and being through the eyes of a made-up person-- someone who could be of a different time, a different age or race or gender or background; it feels like reading a book, being in the mind of the main character and feeling with them even though they aren't you.
Other times I AM me, though not always me as I actually am right now. Often I'm younger-- a child, a teenager, a young adult unmarried and childless (though there are confusing moments when I'm sitting in my 6th-grade classroom saying, "But when I was in COLLEGE..."). I'm also more active, more assertive-- I have a lot of Rallying-the-Troops moments, which also somehow frequently involve me leading everyone in song. Occasionally I'm outright aggressive and violent, taking out the anger I've repressed in real life on obnoxious dream figures (did I tell you about the time I dreamt I was a serial killer who kept reflexively smiting people? I'm still not even sure what I was so angry about at that time).
I'm very prone to lucid dreaming, which sounds all new-agey and mysterious but for me it usually just happens, and most of the time I just decide to ride the dream out to see where it goes, anyway, all the while informing everyone I meet that I'm actually just dreaming them. Often I'll have fun with it-- or use it for quick problem-solving shortcuts-- doing things I KNOW couldn't happen if it wasn't a dream... which most of the time involves me either flying or having affairs with certain celebrity crushes. Many times I don't even have that much power (my flying attempts turn into a sort of low-gravity bouncing, or my celebrity crushes refuse to even show up), and I still get surprised by the dream moments that go on happening regardless of where I think the story's going-- like huge Sheriff McCheeseburger Dudes devouring Mr. Potato Heads behind you just when you think you're going back to redo your lost PRAXIS test. (What. Yes, I'm using real examples here).
But the most common thing I do, when I realize I've been dreaming? Grab a notebook and attempt to write it all down. Sometimes I merely forget that I'm still dreaming and that dream notebooks don't wake up. Other times I'm convinced that if I just get it all down, THIS time I'll have it in the morning. Very often I'm trying to write down the dreams while dreams just keep happening around me, and I'll be like, "JUST LEAVE ME ALONE TO FINISH WRITING THIS!" Or I'll keep having the dream over and over as I "rewrite" it, changing it slightly each time-- or, IT changing without me expecting it.
In real life my doubts have gotten to the point where I can't even write for fun anymore-- except for journaling and letters and occasional blog posts, but only rare bits and pieces of fiction. It makes me question my whole identity, makes me think that I'm NOT a writer after all, that that's just something I did as a child when I had trouble expressing myself and now I should just get an actual life instead. But in my dreams I'm still a writer, taking notes, crafting characters, thinking in narrative.
Am I giving up on my dreams? My dreams are not giving up on me.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-22 10:10 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-10-23 02:52 pm (UTC)From:Honestly, this sounds like a subtle, guilt inducing way to say "please settle into 'normalcy' and quit yer crazy dreamin'." How does fully embracing being a mom invalidate/clash with anything else?
Also, I'm getting increasingly wary of "I'm supposed to"s...
And get well soon! <3
no subject
Date: 2012-10-23 08:40 pm (UTC)From: